Tuesday, 29 March 2011

This post is mainly about my experience knitting the Multnomah shawl. But before I do that, I'm going to point you towards the Crochet Liberation Front's annual Flamie Awards, where my Esmée Cardigan has been nominated for 'Best Design - Adult Garments'. Looking down the list of nominations in the voters' guide, its a great list of some of the best designs and contributions to the crochet world over the past year. And being the Crochet Liberation Front, it does make me a little sad that I'm tacking it onto a post about knitting. But I'm somewhat shy about 'vote for me!' self-promotion (which is why it has taken me until the end of the voting period to actually make this post), and I didn't want to put it on a stand-alone post. And crocheters, do not fear, I am crocheting as I type this post (well, during thinking time), so I should have some crocheted loveliness to post up soon. Also, I'm going to rework the Esmée Cardigan for self-publishing in the summer once I get the rights back, so my brain will be switching to more thoughts about crochet over the coming months (as well as lots and lots of thoughts about final exams).

Anyway, onto Multnomah.

It was quite a pleasing knit, all in all. I used almost a whole skein of Wollmeise Sockenwolle 80/20 Twin We're Different in Pfefferminz Prinz, and 3.25mm needles.

The needles provided the only problem for the knit. When I started, I only had my 3.25mm circular needles with a 30cm cord. These are some old needles that I inherited from my grandmother - so they're a little sticky, and the cord isn't particularly flexible. Also, despite measuring them in a needle gauge, I still wasn't sure if they were 3.25mm. The pattern told me that I would need a longer cord so I promptly ordered some nice Addi premiums online with a 100cm cord. They took longer than expected to arrive, by which time I had a nicely scrunched up shawl on the little circulars, having reached almost the edge of the garter stitch section. Thankfully, when the needles arrived then they were the same size as those I had already been using, and the shawl doesn't seem to show any evidence that two different needles were used.

It was quite mindless, especially the garter section. The feather and fan provided some interest, but it suited the end of term, when I didn't really want to be spending a lot of my time focussing upon my knitting.

As you can see in the above photo, the variegated yarn striped or changed colour nicely, without any large patches of pooling.

One of the next posts will hopefully contain one of the two knitting patterns I have ready to go - I've typed it all out, reknitted it, and am now just waiting for a sunny day when I can photograph my samples.

Neither damask nor blue-and-white porcelain are anything that I've really been interested in before, so I'm having lots of fun researching them, and trying to work out how to convert their designs into charts.

Saturday, 5 March 2011

I agreed to crochet a kiwi (bird) for the college magazine, as kiwi is the magazine's mascot. I had to write out the pattern, so I thought that I would post it here as well. The head+body of my kiwi measures approximately 7in, but gauge is not particularly important.

Notions:

30g of brown yarn (I used Wendy Mode DK)

5g of golden yarn (I used Jarol Heritage DK)

4mm crochet hook

2 black beads for eyes, and a little bit of sewing thread to sew them on

Uses US crochet terms – ch=chain, sl=slip stitch, sc=single crochet, sc2tog= single crochet two stitches together, st=stitch. One stitch is placed in each stitch around unless indicated (such as by 2sc in nxt st).

Body:

Ch6, magic ring.

Increase Round 1: 2sc in each st 6 times round (12 sts total)

Rd 2: *1sc, 2sc in nxt st*, repeat *to* 5 times (18 sts)

Rd 3: *2sc, 2sc in nxt st*, repeat *to* 5 times (24 sts)

Rd 4: *3sc, 2sc in nxt st*, repeat *to* 5 times (30 sts)

Rd 5: *4sc, 2sc in nxt st*, repeat *to* 5 times (36 sts)

Sc around until body is 3 inches long.

Decrease Rd 1: *4sc, sc2tog*, repeat *to* 5 times (30 sts)

Rd 2: *3sc, sc2tog*, repeat *to* 5 times (24 sts)

Rd 3: 6sc *sc2tog, 2sc*, repeat *to* 3 times (18 sts)

Rd 4: sc2tog, 4sc, *sc2tog, 1sc* repeat *to* twice, sc2tog (12 sts)

Bind off

Head:

Ch4, magic ring

Inc Rd 1: 2sc in each st 4 times round (8 sts)

Rd 2: *1sc, 2sc in nxt st*, repeat *to* 3 times (12 sts)

Rd 3: *2sc, 2sc in nxt st*, repeat *to* 3 times (16 sts)

Rd 4: *3sc, 2sc in nxt st*, repeat *to* 3 times (20 sts)

Sc around even for 4 rounds

Decreases: repeat *3sc, sc2tog* until 12 sts remain

Bind off. Stuff head and body. Sew head to body.

Leg:

Ch3, join in 1st ch

Sc round for 2.5 in. Bind off.

Claw: Repeat as above, but sc round for 1in. Attach to leg 1in up with sl sts. Bind off.

Repeat for second leg. Sew to body.

Beak:

Ch5, sc around for 3 in. Then 2sc in every other st until have 13 sts. Bind off. Sew to head.